barbara kafka, cookbook author and writer, died this week. i was a big fan of her first microwave cookbook. there is still much disdain and ignorance about the ways that the microwave can be a useful tool and i remember her book being controversial when it came out.

Bruce was on the founding team of moderators and dreamers who created LTHforum.com an eon ago.

Over the last few years, I sensed his presence more on facebook than LTHforum. This afternoon I recalled not hearing from him for a while. I flipped over to his facebook page to learn he died in January.

One often used and cited trick I learned via Bruce: pour very hot water into an insulated container converting your 'cooler' to a hot box. Someone once grumbled Bruce was not the inventor, however he was my source on how to do this.

I read the obituary in the Sun Times, and he died from Lewy Body disease, which is a combination of dementia and parkinson's. When they did an autopsy on Robin Williams after he committed suicide, they found out he had it. Apparently Paul remarried only four years ago, and so I assume he had it then but was not diagnosed. I've taken care of three different men that had it, and in at least two of the cases, it took the family forever to get the right diagnosis.

Ralph Paige, a nationally prominent advocate for black farmers who fought to save their land and to win them financial compensation for what they contended were years of government discrimination, died on June 28 in Atlanta. He was 74.

Gold died of pancreatic cancer at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles this evening, according to his wife, Times arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa. He was diagnosed with the disease in early July.

Gold died of pancreatic cancer at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles this evening, according to his wife, Times arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa. He was diagnosed with the disease in early July.

at nytimes.com, Pete Wells wrote:Jonathan Gold, the restaurant critic whose curious, far-ranging, relentless explorations of his native Los Angeles helped his readers understand dozens of cuisines and helped the city understand itself, died on Saturday in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 57.

Unlike some critics, Mr. Gold never saw expensive, rarefied restaurants as the peak of the terrain he surveyed, although he reviewed his share of them. Shiki Beverly Hills, Noma and Alinea all took turns under his critical loupe. He was in his element, though, when he championed small, family-run establishments where publicists and wine lists were unheard-of and English was often a second language, if it was spoken at all.

“Before Tony Bourdain, before reality TV and ‘Parts Unknown’ and people really being into ethnic food in a serious way, it was Jonathan who got it, completely,” the writer and editor Ruth Reichl said. “He really got that food was a gateway into the people, and that food could really define a community. He was really writing about the people more than the food.”

=R=

There's a horse loose in a hospital -- JM

I am not interested in how I would evaluate the Springbank in a blind tasting. Every spirit has its story, and I include it in my evaluation, just as I do with human beings. --Thad Vogler

"I very rarely do anything more than three main flavors on any dish," he said. "And what's important in cooking, to me, is the taste. And I think that's the true job of a chef, to create this flavor profile, these flavors of each of the dishes, and I think that that takes a lot of technique and a lot of knowledge to do correctly."